The course website and blog for the Fall 2015 instance of Penn State's SC200 course

Helmets: Stopping Injuries…or Causing Them?

American football and rugby are very similar contact sports. The difference, mainly, between them is that American footballers must wear helmets and a lot of padding, while rugby players wear basically nothing. Recently, there has been a surge of concussion related incidents in the NFL, and a push towards lowering the risk of concussions. The NFL is investing in creating more protective helmets to prevent concussions in its players. On the other side, rugby isn’t having, and has never had a concussion problem before. But, if both are contact sports, why does the sport without helmets have less head injuries than the one with helmets?

The answer may be surprising at first. The reason comes in the form of something called risk homeostasis, or risk compensation. Like what we talked about in Andrew’s class the other day, humans subconsciously weigh risks and rewards in their heads before committing an act. This appears in football when one player is hitting another. “When a player has a body part that’s protected, and the contact with somebody else is imminent, you’re going to put your protected body part first, just reflexively.” Says Dr. Erik Swartz, a kinesiology professor at the University of New Hampshire. So, when football players are going to hit each other, they naturally lead with their head, since it is so well protected, or so they think.

So, why are there so many more concussions in football than rugby?

The answer: tackling style.

When a rugby player tackles another player, he instinctively knows not to go for the head, because it will hurt. This reflex is not there when football players hit each other, because a sense of “invincibility” develops in the players mind. The same is true about MMA fighters and boxers. MMA fighters are proven to punch their opponents less hard than boxers, because they subconsciously hold back because of the little padding they have on their hands. While they think they want to hurt the person they are fighting, subconsciously they know it is another human, and they hold back. Boxers do not. The glove on the hand of a boxer gives the same sense of “invincibility” as a helmet on a football player. They don’t believe they can hurt their opponents as much as an MMA fighter believes he can.

A football player can use his head like a weapon, and not believe anything will happen because of the helmet they are wearing. This has lead to the NFL investing greater in better head protection. But, is that what’s going to stop concussions?

Many people believe the solution to the concussion problem is taking away the helmets.

There is a pad-less football league in America called the A7FL, which is a 7-on-7-football league for semi-pro players trying to stay in game shape. The game is full contact, and according to the players, very much less concussion-prone than the NFL. This is because the players know not to go for each other’s heads, because they don’t have helmets.

In my opinion, the best thing to solve the concussion problem in the NFL would be to remove the helmets. The problem is, this is very unrealistic. I think the best solution would be to teach the players how to hit without teaching them to use their heads as weapons.

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2 thoughts on “Helmets: Stopping Injuries…or Causing Them?”

The only possible solution to this problem is to figure out a helmet design that can prevent head injuries and concussions all in one. based on this website companies are always looking for new technology to prevent injuries. Football cannot take away the helmet or else the business aspect of football would lose money because everybody likes to see a big hit. The only solution to the problem presented is to design a helmet that can prevent concussions and any injury to the brain.

Your post presents an interesting issue. It is not completely proven that wearing helmets and padding is the reason for more concussions. Getting rid of the helmets would solve that. However, like you said that is very unrealistic. I also think that football would become a completely different sport without the padding because the players would react differently. Concussion and injury is becoming an increasingly problematic occurrence. I used to be convinced that rugby was the more physical of the two sports. I find it interesting that it is the complete opposite.